HARRYHERE, OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD, OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD... Here...
Hi Harry,
I'm a film student in Ottawa, Canada and we had the pleasure of having John Kirk (a film archivist for MGM) in our class yesterday giving us a presentation on sword-and-sandal campy movies. (Hercules, Maciste, etc..) Anyways, during the Q&A period, he told us that one of his next big projects will be a full restoration of The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. He told us that Clint Eastwood has already agreed in principle to redub the extra scenes and that the Leone family has given the go-ahead. This means that the 14 minutes available only as Italian extra footage will now be put back into the film, in English. The continuity is supposed to be much more coherent with these additional scenes. Now the bad news - this project hasn't really gotten off the ground yet and he told us to expect it in at least a year. The plan as he envisions it is that it may see a small theatrical re-release and then of course a new DVD/Video event re-release. Hopefully it won't take much longer than a year.
Also, if you do get a chance to see Mr. Kirk's presentation on these campy Hercules movies, go - it's excellent. It's called Sons of Hercules and although it's a home-made project for him, he told us that someone has shown interest in putting up some money to improve it and maybe give it more exposure (i.e. television). It does a great job of showing how these films were exploitive of the male body in a somewhat funny way and how there is so much underlying homo-erotic aspects to them. There are some great interviews with the likes of Richard Harrison and Mickey Hartigay. He hopes to have more interviews added once he gets more funding and re-makes it for televison. It's currently playing at one of our film festivals but I'm not sure where he's showing it next - keep your head up for it.
Anyways, thanks for listening - I know it ain't much, so you can just call me Whisper.
